COLUMNIST RICHARD MILLIMAN: Get out your scissors and join the fun
GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM has set the standards, and the game is on: How does state government reduce spending to fit inside Michigan?s nearly bare pocketbook? In the governor?s annual ?State of the State? message the other day, and in other public appearances before and since, Gov. Granholm has made it clear she does not favor higher taxes to balance the 2003-4 fiscal year budget, which is about $2 billion short of expected revenues. The alternative she favors is to cut spending. Another standard Ms. Granholm has emphasized in her approach to governance is inclusiveness. In her reach-out approach to her job, she promises everyone has a seat at the table. It follows then that she would love to have suggestions from every Michiganian on how to cut state spending and balance the budget.
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IN HER OWN initial approach to cut spending, Gov. Granholm has made various proposals: Call in 1,000 state cars, limit cell phones, cut out color copying, freeze new state hires, cut all department budgets across the board by some small uniform percentage, and turn out the lights in state buildings when not in use. She even advised to keep using old stationery with former Gov. John Engler?s name on it until it runs out.
Reporters and editors at The Lansing State Journal got in to the swing of things, too, with a two-page spread listing 100 ways to cut spending and raise state revenue which they claim would produce $1.7 billion — almost enough to balance next year?s looming budget deficit.
Some innovative ways to raise revenue included sell naming rights to state buildings like sports teams do, issue a special ?Budget Crisis? license plate, sales tax on movie tickets and a 10 percent tax on tickets to college sports events, a form of ?user fee? for Canadian trash coming into Michigan. They also suggested rescind pending cuts in the state income tax, raise the beer tax and diesel fuel tax, sell the state fairgrounds in Detroit and Escanaba as well as the conservation conference center at Higgins Lake, higher penalties for tax cheats, continue the state inheritance tax, higher fees at state parks.
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MOST OF THE 100 ideas in The Lansing State Journal, however, were ways to save money. Leading the list was lower pay for top state officials — getting top elected state officials to surrender voluntarily the 40 percent pay raise over the last two years. That includes legislators, the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, supreme court justices, and judges throughout the state. Both the executive office and legislature should ?set an example? by harsh budget cuts in their own operations, the newspaper suggested. It?s always a good idea to lead by doing.
Other suggestions were to close tourist welcome stations and the state film office, eliminate funding for the state board of education, early prisoner release, provide three fewer holidays for state workers and rescind scheduled state pay hikes, take away state subsidies to Amtrak, eliminate the state racing commissioner and state subsidies for a variety of horse racing purses, and on and on.
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THE POINT IS that anybody can produce lots of ways to cut state government spending or raise more money. If a handful of reporters and editors can figure out 100 ways to cut spending and raise money and almost balance the budget, surely the folks solving the world?s problems at koffee klatches around the state every morning can come up with innovative ideas, too. It?s a game everyone can play.
Getting budget balancing ideas enacted into law can be an entirely different chall
Ignoring for the moment the question of fairness, with deficits at hand in the current budget and potential financial disaster looming in the new budget, this action defies both reason and responsibility.
(Richard Milliman is the former owner/publisher of Presque Isle Newspapers, and a member of the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. His column “Almanack” is a regular feature of the Advance.)
